Pictures c/o Sky Sports
After all the huffing and puffing from some national newspapers, it would appear that David Ornstein of The Athletic does have a line into the club, and as per our recent Spurs ITK, nobody is happy, but amongst those at the top of the Tottenham tree, Mourinho is not primed to lose his job. The issue to those willing to see is with the dysfunctional attitude of some players.
Of course, you are welcome to ignore what José says, what Hugo says, ignore all balanced reason, and keep shouting for a new manager. This white noise will not lead to a solution, it will only produce a different shaped problem with the same component parts.
All hope of a reimagined Pochettino era is not to be indulged for the plain and simple reason that the ship has sailed. Our players are not the same age they were when Mauricio had them firing. They are even older than the last 18-months when we couldn’t win a game on the road…
Spurs obviously need to see an uplift in results, but right now make no mistake, all eyes are on the players.
It might surprise a few.
I’m extremely interested to see how Maureen handles a completely different club, financial model & quality of player than he’s used to. He can’t spend his way out and his back’s against the wall; the problem players still need to be coached and man managed as effectively as possible for the rest of this season; it’s intriguing. It’s a team sport and no one gets a pass so my eyes are on both the players and manager.
And there’s no need to Check It Twice Mike.
This road leads to the ol’ “He’s training them too hard” accusations that Poch got slapped with.
‘They are where they deserve to be in light of their spending”.
Just about sums it up in a nutshell.
The lack of players coming in meant that we (or at least I certainly did) became starved for ANY players. My working theory is that this led to a Stockholm Syndrome mentality where we now continue to make excuses for total dross that wouldn’t have a hope of making the 25 players at City/Chelsea/Liverpool/Utd.
Sissoko wasn’t even a football player when he came in and it took him two seasons to become an extremely unremarkable runner with the ball, which somehow earned him cult status among the fans. Unfortunately, he’s still terrible.
Winks looked promising for a time. An academy product who scored against West Ham and was extremely passionate, but now only offers many accurate passes that don’t impact the game at all. He doesn’t even contribute the passion an academy product or a limited player like Mark Noble would.
We’re still waiting for Dele to get any consistency in his sixth season at Spurs. He will be 25 in three weeks, but some people still haven’t seen that he just hasn’t improved at all – if anything, he’s regressed. Dier has finally found a fixed position in his seventh season here – it’s CB and he’s awful.
People are still saying “but Davies is a professional, just not good enough for us” as if that means he should stay. He shouldn’t. Against anyone with any sort of pace, he immediately becomes a problem, as does Doherty, whose only current mitigating factor is that he’s a newbie. But that doesn’t explain his being unable to do even the basics.
We’re in an abusive relationship with several of these players and the only way to solve this is to get rid. No more excuses and hoping the broken players will get a new lease of life with another manager. They have shown us enough and have to go.
Maybe he was like many anti-Jose fans and judged the squad by the names and not by their significant drop-off in quality and determination since the end of Poch’s time?
On paper we might not have a bad squad, but application, mentality and desire are severely lacking – without that, names don’t matter much.
We have a poor defense this is clear. Certain midfielders have also let us down… Maureen won multiple trophies at his last job, he wasn’t backed, so it was with many players he didn’t want.. Our squad was apparently better yet they finished 2nd under him plus the titles.. Dinosaurs are extinct. Our manager most certainly isn’t.
Essex, I hate to break it to you, but he lifted 3 pieces of silverware at Man United – this squad would break Clough/Ferguson anyone you can name.
I appreciate you don’t like the guy, I really do, but your opinion is not a cogent argument!
He’s RARELY delivered exciting football at any of his clubs and this is not breaking news lol
Botch favoured Bentaleb over Moussa Dembele for the whole first year, even leaving him on the bench for the league cup final.. We were all scratching our heads.. Fast forward 5 years and he’s comparing him to Ronaldinho!… Also Botchy signed Stambouli.
One can only teach a chimp so much..
Half the players need to go. I said it beginning of the season and there were people quick to defend the likes of Winks and Davies.. The shite players. Not our best players.
Only have a vision manifested if you have the right players to play that way. Pep and Klopp only won when they got the right players. If your waiting for the youth to comethough you have to play the waiting game.
Stop getting at Eric…..it’s clear to us all that, as he points at everyone else and shouts his mouth off, it ain’t his fault 🤣🤣
We need a clear out, and I also have a list.
It’s so true!
Had friends around on Thursday who weren’t die hard football fans…..but even before the game started, they commented on how lethargic some of our players warmed up…..let alone how they played!
I think this is the main issue, we have such an attacking force but are refusing to use them in their natural style of playing, yet we persist in such a way that is clearly failing and so unsuitable for these players .
Not sure that I’ve ever heard a new manager come into a club and pointedly declare some players are useless! Of course the new manager says he is really happy. Only after a while, will he be looking at who to replace and with whom. Trouble is that we have got players getting older and others just not up to it! Daniel Levy is a canny devil…..he’ll know that this summer there will be bargains to be had. Let’s just hope we can get the right ones.
Got my list 😁😁😁
Everything comes down to how the manager is managing the players, at the beginning he was quoted as saying he was “happy with the squad” has since recruited more but we have simply fallen apart.
Today is huge for Mourinho, in how we play and how well the players perform, it will tell us a lot.
Irrespective of the attitude of the players, Maureen is still not the right manager for us. He is technically a dinosaur. But he a serial winner, you all cry, instead of focusing on ‘was’. It is just so hard to watch. He have one of the best 3 or attacks in the league and he goes out to try and win 1-0. We are the third worst team in the league for throwing away a lead!
As we now only have league games, plus one minor cup final game, I would like to see Mourinho show us his vision for the future. He should stop picking the players who he thinks aren’t good enough for the future right now. For example, how many supporters want to see Dier and Aurier ever again? Develop Tanganga and Rodon. And buy a proficient keeper as a matter of urgency in the summer.
I remember that – Kane and others VS Adebayor, Bentaleb, Kaboul, Stambouli, Capoue… If only we could again discard the wasters like that…
Yeah, Mourinho got called out for asking Fatboy Slim to attend Weight Watchers, now he’s in the form of his life and back in the England squad.
Not unheard of, Poch cleared out a large group of time wasters.
It’s like having a car where the engine is kaput and you keep changing the tyres and are completely baffled when it won’t start.
Its likely that its a group of disgruntled bang average players who are the main protagonists behind the dressing room unrest but when players down tools it very rarely ends well for the manager and for that reason I think Jose is goosed. To build the team he wants he would probably want to get rid of 7 or 8 players from that squad but is that really going to happen with the way Levy operates?
Just compare “Spurs players don’t like training under Jose” to some quotes I read from Leeds players on training under Bielsa. One of them – can’t remember who – was positively shocked, saying “I never knew my body could do that”.
And another, on “murderball”:
“It’s ten times harder than a Premier League game…I have never been as fit as this, and I’m sure the rest of the lads would say the same…You can forgive yourself if you’re not having a great game; obviously you can’t play well every single match unless you’re Ronaldo or Messi.
But if you’re not running, that’s a choice.” – Patrick Bamford
A choice quite a few of our players make time and time again!
I hate Man Utd but I think they made a massive error in backing Pogba rather than Jose. Their resurgence has come from buying players (£250m spent), notably Fernandes, not because Pogba has proved to be a consistent world class performer. Don’t get me wrong, Pogba is much better than Fred and McTominay (combined), but attitude is everything. Odd that Ole is being given great credit by all and sundry when he has been bailed out by spending rather than his coaching.
Player power and their attitude is going nowhere. It now has to be managed, which is what successful ‘managers’ do. My issue is when the player power comes from bang average footballers who have won nothing. Forcing a manager out because players do not like criticism or training methods is beyond a joke. I hated my boss for 4 years but turned up every day and worked my backside off, and I wasn’t getting £65k a week and a win bonus!
Luke Shaw and pogba were disfunctional too..
Focus on the layers as it should be, exactly! Mourhino is a great coach and proven it time and time again. That he doesn’t put up with prima donna mega egos who think they are bigger than the team, is rare and admirable. This is the same bunch of self-centred ego-centric players that got Pochettino sacked. Stop looking for excuses for these guys. The problem is the players not the coach/manager. No coach on earth is going to get anything more from this group of mis-fits. My impression is that this is a team that fell together more as a result of unfortunate consequences and financially driven decisions, than one chosen on being the right piece in a puzzle, Hitchen is a disaster. In fact, he’s never really done much to prove his value to the club since he’s been there? He over-rode Pochettino with lame ass advice on players when clearly better fitting options were available. Clear out Hitchen and the scouting staff and get rid of the cancers within the team. Why on earth Danny Rose has even been “allowed” anywhere near the rest of the team, is beyond me. Most of the anti -Mourhino crowd have been like this since day one. Every time theres a dip in form theyre right back at the front of the que withe the same tired old rant.
Eric Dier and some branded Spurs Tupperware (sterilised, one careful owner) for a fiver
Hopefully lockdown restriction are lifted soon because Spurs need to hold a car boot sale for players this summer